Missoula Firearms Dealer Has Never Sold ‘Bump Stocks’ Used By Las Vegas Shooter

The man responsible for the Las Vegas massacre last Sunday, Stephen Paddock, used an add-on device called a 'bump-stock' to enable the weapons he fired to mimic a fully automatic machine gun.

Since this fact was made public, and authorities have begun to propose a ban on the devices, sales have been skyrocketing before they are no longer available. However, there's at least one firearms dealer in Missoula that has never carried them.

Owner of Axmen Firearms, Rich Oschner, told KGVO News that the add-on product just didn't make any sense to own.

"At our store, we've never sold them," said Oschner. "I've never liked the idea and when they came out it never made good sense to me. I've always been concerned that the ATF may look at it someday and change their ruling.I just didn't want our customers in the middle of something that later on could become contraband. I also didn't see any good functionality in it. It doesn't make the gun any more controllable, it just makes the weapon shoot a whole lot of ammo in a short amount of time."

Oschner said machine guns have become extraordinarily expensive over the years, due to the controversial nature of owning a device that can shoot so many rounds so rapidly.

"To give you an idea, an auto sear that made the semi-auto a machine gun back in 1986 was about $50.00, " he said "Today, that same auto sear runs about $15,000. It's not something the everyday person could afford, and that's where I think the attractiveness of the bump fire, or the slide-fire stocks really took off, because it became a poor man's way to make a machine gun."

Oschner said the entire staff agreed not to stock the device.

"I just decided when I first saw the product that I wasn't going to sell it," he said. "On talking to my entire staff, it was unanimous. It was agreed that we should stay with that stance and not sell them. We've never carried them in the store, and we've never sold them."